The story of MakeEdge®

The inspiration for MakeEdge® came from the founder of our company, Ken Muff Lassen. We were exhibiting at the the Ambiente Fair in Frankfurt, February 2007. Ken brought me to a booth that had inspired him. The German company Maywerk showed some beautiful knife sharpeners. A functional sculpture for easy knife sharpening. Just by holding your knife straight, as if you would like to cut something, you would be able to sharpen it. So Ken wanted me to try it. Allthough I held the knife absolutely straight (in my opinion), Ken kept complaining that I held the knife in a wrong angle. It lead us to talk about knife sharpening vs. knife honing, and how to ensure that you have the right angle when honing. Hereafter I got the task to develop “an idiot proof” knife honer, a modernized version of the honing steel.

mayerundthile.de

This was the starting point of the MakeEdge® innovation. Henrik Casper (head of innovation at IDEAS 2005-2010) and I started the initial sketches in the shuttlebus from Hall 10 to Hall 1, on our way back from the fair the same day. Surely we wanted to work with high-tech ceramic as this is the DNA of most innovations by IDEAS. Also ceramic is non magnetic and harder than steel, thus perfect for knife honing. We wanted to make it so easy to use that the weight of your knife would center the blade in the ceramic honing stones, when pulling the knife through.

The fundamental philosophy behind MakeEdge® is that you should rather hone (maintain) your knife, than you should sharpen it (repair). When sharpening you strip away metal to form a new cutting edge. Whereas MakeEdge® straigthens up the existing edge.

MAKEEDGE™ CLICK-IN

When honing a knife you need to do it frequently. You cannot repair a dull knife by honing. You hone to keep it sharp, not to make it sharp. You can hone as often as you like – the more frequent the better. It will extend the lifetime of a cutting edge.

The MakeEdge® solution is built on 2 set of ceramic stones, with respectively 1 or 2 honing knobs, that are mounted into a click-in unit. The geometry of the stones works for both plain and rounded serrated knives. Just make sure that the 1-honing knob points towards the serration of your knife, then it will work!

MakeEdge® has been tested by Catra in 2007 for it’s performance in comparison with leading market products. MakeEdge® came out with significant increase in cutting comparing to other products.

MakeEdge® has passed a durability test performed by the Danish Technological Institute. MakeEdge® has 5 years warranty on each side of the click-in mechanism, meaning 10 years warranty in total.

Just rotate your MakeEdge® click-in mechanism if the ceramic parts get’s worn. This will increase the lifetime of your product. See how to in this video